I was going to be a good girl and wait.
When I entered the waiting room again, Kace was still there, sitting quietly and drinking, slouched in his seat, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world.
I envied him.
I poured myself another glass of wine and waited.
And waited.
3
It was three a.m.
And there had been no sign of Ivy yet.
I knew this was on purpose. He wasn’t spending the time trying to get his hair just right. He was waiting for something.
And I was going to play his game.
I was in his house, after all.
If he wanted me to sit here and wait and get nervous and drink more wine, so be it. There wasn’t anything else for me to do, and I felt a calm despite my precarious situation.
Lola and Matt had rejoined us in the room and the other vampires and humans in Ivy’s employ had mostly left us alone, seeing that we weren’t going to be aggressive or trouble in any way.
Which is exactly what I wanted.
I got up to pour myself another glass of wine when a door creaked to the left, outside of the room. It wasn’t loud, but any vampire would have picked it up. Something in that sound made me think...
“Victoria. Thank you for coming,” Ivy said, standing in the doorway to the waiting room.
As if this was a party or something.
“Well, you certainly kept us waiting long enough,” I said.
Ivy flashed a smile—he really was very handsome—and put his hands into the pockets of his pants.
“I had to get my hair just right,” he said with a gleam in his eye that let me know he still retained a sense of humor.
“You know, I got ready to come here quicker than that. Ask any of them,” I said, and splayed out my hand to indicate my friends. “Well?”
“Well,” he said, drawing out the words, “I’m going to show you to your rooms.”
This was a really fucked up hotel, I thought, caught off guard.
“Okay,” I said, equally drawing out the words. “I didn’t realize we’d be here for the long haul.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “It may take me some time. What I need to figure out. I take it you and the roadrunner will want to stay together?”
Inwardly I rolled my eyes. Roadrunner was a term for those with speed that had gone out of fashion at least six decades ago. Nicknames for gifts changed with the times.
“Yes, we would,” I said, realizing that he thought Matt was no threat whatsoever, and then I thought I something else. “You know, some of us may need to feed soon.”
I was actually getting close to feeding time, but I was more or less curious about how he would answer.
“Right. That’s what the humans are for,” he said, as if he were pointing me to the pantry for a snack.
“Do they know that?” I asked, a small smile forming on my face.
“Not exactly. I find that less is more in these cases,” he said, returning my smile.
I figured my question asking quota was about up, so I just let it go.
“Alright, show us the way,” I said and Ivy moved out of the room and to the left swiftly, almost leaving the four of us behind.
I exited and the other three were behind me. Up ahead, Ivy went into a room on the left. As I followed him inside, I could see it was the library, and I thought, he must be kidding.
He wasn’t.
Just like in the movies, he pulled a book from the shelf (Dracula, I’m not kidding you) and the book shelf swung forward to reveal a stone passageway.
I felt like I was playing Clue.
Torches were hung on the walls and we walked along it, our steps echoing off the stone.
Off the main walkway were a variety of rooms, and here finally was the furniture and decor and places where it looked like people actually lived.
The house itself was just a front.
“Victoria, do you know whose house this was?” Ivy asked, sounding even more pompous than usual.
I didn’t feel like a game of trivia, but I was playing along as best I could stand.
“I don’t know. Whose house was it?” I asked.
Ivy gasped, for real or exaggerated I wasn’t totally able to tell, and then he tsked me.
“I thought you would know this, being that this is your city and all.”
“I’ve lived in many different cities,” I said.
“Yes, but you seem particularly suited here. With the constant heat and humidity, the parties, the lazy rhythm of its denizens, this city has a heartbeat that’s in tune with you.”
Thanks for the analysis, I thought, but didn’t say anything.
He walked along more slowly now, with his hands clasped behind his back.
“This was the home of Theodore Greene,” he said, and the name didn’t ring a bell. “Businessman, bootlegger, politician—probably in that order—” he added with a smile, turning his head to look at me, “and, of course, immortal.”
I wondered why we were getting this story, but I felt it in my best interests to let him keep talking.
“It’s odd, of course, for a vampire to engage in human activities when not absolutely necessary,” Ivy said, stating what was already obvious to me. “But Theodore was not your everyday vampire.”
We were still walking along the stone corridor though I was getting the distinct impression we were curving around to the right. To my right, we passed by another walkway, this one not lit with any torches.
As I took a second to look down it, it seemed to go nowhere but into more darkness, and I knew then that this wasn’t simply a secret passageway, but a maze.
“It’s obvious why Theodore would have this built,” Ivy said, turning his palms up and splaying both hands out to his sides to indicate the structure around us. “I’m just very lucky this home has fallen into my possession.
“To the outside world he was a prominent citizen and wealthy businessman. He would entertain people in his home—upstairs, of course—and they would be none the wiser of what was going on below.
“Only a select few were ever allowed underground, and, of course, they never came back up again.”
He stopped talking for a few seconds and I thought he was done with the story.
“Thanks for the history lesson,” I said. “To be honest, I’ve actually never heard of Theodore Greene. Where is he now? This house looks like it hasn’t been lived in for years.”
Ivy hesitated almost imperceptibly.
“Theodore is asleep—voluntarily, of course. He’s been out now...about sixty years.”
I asked the first question that popped into my mind.
“Is he here? I mean, in this...whatever this is...cave, labyrinth?”
“No,” Ivy said, his voice sharp. “No, he’s in another city, in one of his vaults. He has a few of them, you know. He goes to sleep periodically. He’s very, very old.”
By periodically, he probably meant once every few centuries or so. For the ancient among us, it’s the only way to get by. Or so I’ve heard.
I waited for Ivy to start talking again, but he remained silent, and finally we came to three doors, two on one side of the hallway and one on the opposite side.
“And here are your rooms,” he said, with the air of a butler. “Victoria,” he said and then pointed toward the wall with the single door.
He then indicated Kace and Lola, and swept his arm toward the wall with the two doors, apparently not feeling the need—or the care—to address either of them by name.
“So, is that the only exit out of here?” I asked, pointing back the way we had come in.
Ivy cleared his throat.
“Yes, but you won’t be leaving the tunnels without my permission anyway. Any food you need will be brought to you as well as water, of course, and really anything you want, but it has to stay down here. You may however wander freely through the corridors.”
This struck me as odd, but then again he
had let most of us wander freely upstairs. I guess he wasn’t as worried about Kace down here.
“Okay then,” I said and went to turn the knob on the door to my room.
“Oh no, not yet,” Ivy said. “Victoria, you’re coming with me first.”
I turned and looked at him, not bothering to hide my surprise.
“Oh yes, we’ll be doing this nightly. You and I. Come.”
I glanced at Matt, who looked worried, and I communicated to him that it would be alright.
Lola looked equally worried, but Kace stared at me with a calm expression on his face. I wondered what he was thinking.
“It’s okay. Victoria is very valuable to me. No harm will come to her.”
I shrugged my shoulders at no one in particular, resigned to my mission.
“I’m all yours,” I said.
“I like the sound of that,” he said and brushed a lock of hair from his forehead.
4
Ivy and I walked back the way we came, taking a left turn off the main walkway and into a darker one. This one dead ended not far along, and at the end was Ivy’s living quarters.
Opulent, luxurious, decorated in deep red tones. It was everything you’d think a vampire’s bedroom to be.
But this was more than a bedroom. It was really an entire apartment.
Without waiting to be asked, I sat down on a plush, red sofa and put my feet up on a plush, red ottoman, preparing myself for whatever was coming.
“Would you like a drink?” Ivy asked.
“No, I’ve had plenty. What are we going to do?”
Without a word, he sat down in a chair nearby and looked at me for a long few seconds.
“I’m going to sit here, and you’re going to sit there, until I figure this out.”
I was thoroughly confused.
“You don’t want me to do anything?”
“There’s nothing for you to do. I’ve got to figure out the pattern, and I need you next to me to do that.”
I must have sat and stared at him like he was insane because he went on.
“You are a key. You unlock something. I need to know what that something is.”
I felt something click inside me, as if I actually was a key, and I felt the same sensation again that whatever needed to be done was in some sense already done, and I just needed to play along—no, fit myself along—with what the order itself was already going to do. The words started coming out of my mouth.
“You think I’m going to stop you,” I said and it wasn’t a question.
“I think you’re very special, and I think The Three know this. They want to use you to stop me from realizing my truest potential.”
“But what would that even be?” I asked, not knowing where these words were coming from. “You already have everything. There’s nothing left to be possessed.”
“There’s plenty,” he said, standing up, fidgeting. “I’m never going to... die, Victoria. And I only need feeding once a century maybe—and that’s only to restore myself, not to remain awake.”
He stopped here and was either choosing his words carefully or wasn’t exactly sure what to say.
For a second, he looked un-composed, and the difference was striking.
He poured himself a drink. Not wine, but bourbon, and I reconsidered the drink for a moment. Then figured that the less fuzzy headed I was the better.
“I need to keep pressing forward. Otherwise, what else is there? You fascinate me, draw me in. I can’t let go of you. You have something I need. That I am sure of.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond, but The Three popped back into my head and the words they left me with.
Find your desire.
Is that what Ivy wanted? Whatever my desire was. Seemed unlikely, considering what he was and what he was doing. And, anyway, The Three made it perfectly clear that he had ruined something within the order and it had to be rebalanced.
I had to stop him.
It was the only way.
He looked at me strangely as if he knew what I was thinking, but he didn’t ask me for my thoughts, and, in fact, spoke no more.
We sat in silence until probably dawn, though the sunlight was far above us.
* * *
“So what happened?” Lola asked, sitting on the edge of my bed.
“We sat there, basically.”
“And then you left?”
“He told me I could go.”
Matt lay next to me with his head on the pillow, one of his arms behind his head, while I sat up along the headboard with my feet stretched out in front of me.
Kace sat in a chair across the room, his legs crossed and his arms draped over the armrests.
“How long do you think we’re going to be here?” Lola asked.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “And I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it.”
The four of us sat in silence, the despair creeping up on us, until Kace spoke.
“We went exploring,” he said, and I looked up, hopeful.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“More of the same,” he said, gesturing broadly with his hands. “Stone corridors, torches, rooms. This is a large area. It was clearly designed to keep people trapped.
“I think it’s a maze,” I said.
“Right. We had to be really careful going along, that we would be able to make our way back. But either way, we weren’t able to find any other exits.”
“Well, Ivy said there wasn’t any.”
“He’s lying,” Kace said, his gestures becoming more animated. “What vampire would create a structure where there was only one way in and one way out, in effect, boxing himself in? It’s not natural.”
“But even if we found an exit, so what? I’m not leaving until I’m done here. I can’t leave,” I said.
“Maybe you can’t leave,” Kace said, leaning forward in his chair, “but I could.”
He had a fair point. Being able to wander freely would be an advantage for us.
“They clearly didn’t want me walking around by myself upstairs, for obvious reasons. So I’m thinking that wandering around might be a good thing to do, if I could do it secretly.”
It was then I felt something strike me, like a pin prick to my brain.
“What have you picked up around Ivy? Do you get anything when you’ve been around him?” I asked.
“Not sure I’ve been close enough,” Kace said, “but I had the same thought.”
“He keeps telling me that I’m a key,” I said, hopping off the bed. I moved around to get my mind going and to use up some excess energy. “That he’s trying to figure out what I unlock. He’s trying to pick up the pattern. I wonder—.”
“If I can get close enough, can I pick it up?” Kace said, finishing my thought.
I smiled and he smiled back.
“But, if Ivy himself can’t pick it up, why would you be able to?” Matt said, sitting up and resting his upper body against the headboard.
“He’s having difficulty, and I think this is unusual,” I said. “Maybe he’s not picking up something correctly. I imagine he doesn’t like admitting he’s wrong. Maybe a third party—someone objective—would be able to see what he can’t.”
There was a moment of quiet, when all four of us considered, nodding our heads in tentative agreement.
“He doesn’t find me as much of a threat down here,” Kace said.
“Which is odd,” Lola said, “you would think he’d be guarding his gift.
“He’s arrogant,” Kace said, “which is why Lucas is drawn to him. He doesn’t think I’ll be able to use his gift if I get close to him. He’s more worried about me developing super strength,” Kace said. Then he made a muscle with both arms at the sides of his head, showing off his biceps. It wasn’t much, and we all laughed, including him. “Or whatever else he’s got up there.”
“What if you positioned yourself outside of his door when he and Vic are in there? Would you be able to pick it up then
?” Lola asked.
“Not close enough,” Kace said, shaking his head vigorously. “I would need to be in the room with them.”
“That may be a problem,” I said, thinking there was no way Ivy was going to let him in.
Kace nodded his agreement.
“If only we could get him to come to us,” Matt said. “Catch him off guard, in a way.”
I raised my eyebrows at Matt, hoping he would go on, but he didn’t seem to have any further ideas.
I felt there was truth there, but how to bring that about wasn’t clear.
“I agree, but what we would lure him with, I don’t know,” Kace said, and Matt smiled a friendly smile at him.
“Let’s keep working on finding an exit. Exploring this place,” I said. “There may be something down here we can use.”
5
The days started to go by, as they always do when you can’t see the sunlight, in a blur. I was starting to lose track.
All day (I think) me, Matt, Lola and Kace would hang around, eating, talking, drinking, sleeping, and every night for a few hours I would go to Ivy’s quarters where we sat, mostly not talking, while he tried to figure me out. Mostly I just read while I was there.
Eventually, I was at the point where I needed to feed, and one of Ivy’s group brought me one of the humans from upstairs into a special room set aside just for feeding.
The human looked excited when he arrived and I was positive he hadn’t been told the truth of why he had been summoned. He thought he was beginning his immortal life, and the truth was, he was just ending his mortal one.
I bit him on the neck and began to drink, and I knew that he was thinking the transformation had begun.
It was better to let him think that.
When I was done, and his lifeless body was in my arms, I set him down gently on the floor, crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes while I waited for someone to come pick him up, like I had been told.
I sat there with him, cross legged, so he wouldn’t be alone.
Finally, they came and got him.
I sat there for a little while by myself thinking about what The Three had said about the agreement between life and death.
Bored To Death Page 22